Gratitude Journal

I have been thinking for many, many month now that I needed to start a gratitude journal. I know I am truly blessed and at times (much to often) take it for granted. I was finally inspired to make a journal from a challenge. Here is what I started with - it was a freebie my hubby got from one of the vendor shows he went to.

Front Cover:

Inside Front Cover:

Book Mark I made for it:

Inside Back Cover:

Back cover:

Now I just need to actually start using it! I'm going to enter it in a challenge on Some Assembly Required blog. Wish me luck!

Lil' Kickers - Austin playing soccer

I've been so bad about blogging and I have so much I want to share. I went with my girlfriends to the lake weekend before last to scrap. We do it about 3 times a year. It's so nice and relaxing but also productive. This is one of the layouts I finished while I was there. Austin was in soccer this past summer for just a short time but of course I have to scrap it! I used the Cricut to cut out the title but I don't remember which cartridge. The soccer balls down the sides are the felt borders from Queen and Co. All Star and CHAMP were a couple of vellum words I got out of a quote book. Then all the white words, stars, lines and number came from a Heidi swap frame kit. The little soccer balls, I found at Hobby Lobby in the kids craft section and are felt with an adhesive back. I used pop dots to attach them. Can't remember where I got the paper or what company it is but other than that I think I covered it all. I'm pleased with how it turned out. : )

Camp Barnabas

I did this LO from a sketch challenge over at CafeMom. I'm really trying to expand my style and make it more free and not so cautious. I have always taken forever to do my LO's, think and over think it, and make sure everything matches just right. I'm going to stop it! I find that the people work I really like isn't all matchy, matchy and perfectly done. So I'm starting to try and be less concerned about it and more creative.
This is a picture that was taken at Camp Barnabas. Kaitlyn and 2 of her girlfriends (both also with DS) went to camp there last month for a weekend. They had a blast! It is an awesome camp for children with disabilites. We are sending her again in February for another weekend and her girlfriends will be going again also. I'm going to do a 2nd page for this LO with more pictures on that one.

**** THE NEW SCRAP ROOM ****

I am soooooooo excited about my new scrap space. As you can see from these before pics that my area was a complete mess. Stuff just piled everywhere. I'm really a very organized person so this was very hard for me to look at for so long. But FINALLY---new shelves and a peg board and it's all up and off my work area.

Drum roll please . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AND HERE IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the half wall that I used to hang these little shelves with containers. All the containers hanging from the shelves hold my buttons. The 3 containers on the top right hand shelf hold all my brads.

Yes, I looooooooves flowers! That and ribbon are something I just have a really hard time passing up.

I'm loving the peg board so much! I have all my tools right at my fingertips but not in my way. I can see all my punches too.

In the plastic drawers at the bottom, I have all my wooden stamps, embellishments by theme/holidays, eyelets, fibers and other embellishments.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my new room. And yes, you are welcome to come play anytime. I love to share my things! : )

Believe!

These are some 3x3 cards I did for a swap on CafeMom. These are suppose to be Christmas but didn't come out very Christmasy. I embossed the "Believe".

Stay tuned . . . I will be revealing my new scrap space very soon!!! It is sooooo exciting. Well, it is for me anyways! hehe I'm going to try and post the pics tomorrow. But here is one of the BEFORE pictures.

Isn't this scary!!! I was going to post it for Halloween but I was afraid I would frighten the children. ; )

My Little Spooks!

I had to share pics of my little ones from last night. Austin was Optimus Prime from Transformers. I LOVE that movie! Can't wait for the next one to come out.

Kaitlyn was a cheerleader. She got a Barbie cheerleader outfit (dress up) for her birthday in August so we just used it for her costume. I'm going to have to put on her scrap page "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World". For those who don't know it's from last season of Heros. Wow that's a lot about movies and t.v. for being Halloween. hehe

Here is a rare moment that Kaitlyn hugged Austin and he didn't jerk away immediately. Awwwwe, so sweet.

I hope everyone had a great time with their families and friends on Halloween. Now if I can just stay away from the candy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birthday Wishes

Sometimes I'm pleased with my work and sometimes I'm not. This time I was VERY pleased with how this card turned out. I love the look of a bunch of different patterns together but usually chicken out and don't do it. This one is even done for me where all the patterns are suppose to go together. So really I don't know why I'm so surprised that they actually DO look good together. : p

I used another Bella image that I got from a swap. Just used colored pencils to color it and I always use a blender pen over it to smooth the colors out.

I love this paper - it has glitter all over it.

You Go Girl!

I debated about even putting this up on my blog. I'm not super happy with how the sky turned out but oh well! I don't own any Bella's as of yet but I got these in a stamped image swap. I used the Peerless Water Colors for this. It was stamped on watercolor paper with black StazOn ink.

The Little Red Wagon

I finally broke down and bought this really cute stamp set from Pink Persimmon called The Little Red Wagon. I'm old enough to actually remember the Dick and Jane reading books. I stamped this on watercolor paper and use Peerless Water Colors. These are so much fun to use. I'm still VERY new at using watercolors so don't look TOO closely at my work. I still have a ways to go in learning how to use them well.

One for all & All the rest for me!!!!

This is a card I made for a sketch challenge on a CafeMom scrap group. Here is the sketch.

I made my card from memory so I forgot about the corner things. I did it because I wanted to use some of the new stamps I just had received from an Ebay win. This set was a "Archivers Excuslive" but I can't remember the company right now. We don't have an Archivers here and I've never been to one but I'm dying to go!! I used pencils and Copics to color the monkey. Oh yeah, I said COPICS!!! Hobby Lobby has them 30% off this week. So I took the plug and bought 5 of them. I'm so excited! I feel like a big girl stamper now. : )

EDIT: I had to fix a couple of errors and reposted this. I hope those who are on my subscription list don't get this 3 times. If you do, I'm sorry!! I'll proof read better from now on. : p

Halloween Tag

Here's just a quickie for tonight. This a tag I made for a swap. I used one of the $1 stamps that I bought at the CK convention. I don't remember the brand though. Just added a touch of color with the orange and grey. I used a white gel pen to mark the corner. Pretty simple and easy.

Since it's getting close to Halloween, how about a little candy fun. I found this on a post at CafeMom and thought it was interesting. See how good you can do.

Is that a Milky Way or a 3 Musketeers? A Mounds or an Almond Joy? Try to guess your favorite candy bars by viewing images of their
middles.
NAME THAT CANDY BAR

The stamp that started it all!

This is from Halloween 2005 but was scrapped probably in 2007. I was on a weekend scrap retreat at the lake with my girlfriends. One of the girls brings her stamps and inks every time. I was working on this princess page and she said she had this princess stamp. Well, I used it and the saying that went with it. I also colored it in with the SU markers she had. That I believe it what started it all. Within a few months of this, I started buying my own stamps. I started with acrylic because they were less "scary" to me. I still prefer acrylic because I like to see exactly where I'm stamping but I will use rubber stamps now without the fear of messing up. It's been a little over a year that I started making cards. Cards and stamps are two things I never thought I'd get into but boy was I wrong!

Peach Fuzz

Sometimes, not often though, I impress myself. This is one of those rare times. : ) I was doing a recipe swap and it was for a drink, it could be alcoholic or not. I didn't have a clue what to do mainly because I mostly drink Diet Coke. hehe But then I remembered I had been to the Outback Steakhouse recently and enjoyed one of their Wallabedarned drinks. I rarely drink but on the occasion that I do go to the Outback I get this yummy peachy frozen drink.

Well, I Googled it to see if I could find a recipe and this is what I found. I haven't actually tried it but it sounds good. So as I'm thinking about it I thought I need to get paper with peaches on it or something. What I tried doing instead was printing a picture of peach off the internet, traced it on cardstock then cut it out. Then I flocked it. So it actually has peach fuzz. How cool is that. I just started working with flock and thought I could use the clear embossing pad and it would adhere the flock. Well it did, sort of, but it easily rubbed right off. So I used a glue stick and it worked great. You can touch it and the flock stays put. I cut the petals off a flower to use as the leaves. If anyone tries this recipe please let me know if it's good. : )

Glam Girl Card

I made this card for a challenge in one of my scrap groups from CafeMom. There was a sketch but I can't find it now but it was pretty close to what I did. You were suppose to use a Bella stamp. I do love the Bella stamps but I don't have any so I used this one I had just bought off Ebay. It's called Glam Girls and the saying came with it. I used colored pencils to color the image. They voted on the challenge and the end and the winner rec'd all the cards. Well, I didn't win. : ( So now I'm going to have to say goodbye to my Glam Girl.

BLOG CANDY - WINNER!!!

I had my son Austin draw the name from the bucket.



And the winner is........Sara! Here's what she said.

Sara Schumann has left a new comment on your post "BLOG CANDY - up for grabs!!":
Great blog, Diane, and congrats on getting 1,000 hits.

Congrats Sara!! I am sending you and email to get your address so I can mail out your goodies.

Stay tuned ladies! I like to give away stuff!

My first Chipboard Album.

This is my first ever board book. I know, I know, I'm way behind the times!! I've just been doing my 12x12 LOs and leaving it at that. But I finally decided I need to mix things up a bit. This is a chipboard book from Maya Road. I decided to use it to put our visit to Thomas the train for 2006 & 2007, but I just finished the album this summer. Austin now thinks he's too big for Thomas the Train. He's only 5-1/2!! They grow up so fast!

I love using ribbon and having it stick out but there wasn't really a way to do it so I used my Crop-o-dile Big Bite and punched holes on the edges of the pages in all different areas. Then tied the ribbon through the holes.

I used a zipper pull (the yellow RR) for an embellishment and just put it through one of the holes I punched then added the ribbon.

Austin got to go on stage and help with the magic show.

The train is some Felt Fusion from Queen & Co.

I really need one more page for all the pictures that I had so I put pictures on the inside of the front and back covers. Worked great.